Top Stunt Man Robinson Dies Filming Movie

November 22, 1986

PAGE, Ariz. (AP) _ Veteran stuntman Dar Allen Robinson, who survived jumps from helicopters and off tall buildings, was killed in a motorcycle accident during filming.

Robinson, 39, of Los Angeles died Friday after he plunged 40 feet down an embankment while filming ″Million Dollar Mystery.″ Doctors at Page Hospital said he suffered massive internal trauma. An autopsy was planned today.

Robinson held more than 21 world stunt records and appeared in such movies as ″Sharky’s Machine″ and ″Stick,″ both with Burt Reynolds.

In ″Sharky’s Machine,″ he executed a backward free fall of more than 40 stories after being thrown through a window.

Robinson rode to his death during filming of a scene in which he and two others drove ″dirt bike″ motorcycles around a sharp turn in U.S. Highway 89- A, said Sgt. Allan Schmidt, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

″Robinson had been driving next to the curb as it made a sharp left,″ Schmidt said. ″For some reason he drifted to the right on to the soft shoulder of the road and lost control of the bike.″

Robinson then fell over a 40-foot embankment, struck a boulder and fell in some sage brush, where he received a puncture wound, Schmidt said.

In 1980, Robinson did a 900-foot fall from Toronto’s CN Tower with a wire cable that stopped him 200 feet from the ground. It marked his second successful jump from the world’s tallest free-standing structure.

A year earlier, he jumped from the 1,821-foot tower, but opened a parachute toward the end and floated to the ground. He reportedly received $250,000 for the parachute leap.

Robinson, who performed a free fall from the top of the Houston Astrodome, also held the record for a jump from a helicopter. On Sept. 2, 1978, he jumped 286 feet from a helicopter in Buena Park to eclipse a record of 280 feet held by fellow stuntman A.J. Bakunas.

Bakunas died later that month trying to regain the world free-fall record from Robinson. In Lexington, Ky., the air bag designed to cushion Bakunas’ 115-mile per hour landing burst when he hit it.